This paper discusses the mother-daughter relationships in two plays by two contemporary Irish playwrights: Martin McDonagh and Marina Carr. Both, McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Carr's By the Bog of Cats present various types of the mother-daughter relationship. This study applies Nancy Chodorow's concepts of the mother daughter relationship, in order to thoroughly investigate Mag and Maureen's relationship in McDonagh's play. Additionally, this study examines Big Jesie- Hester/ Hester- Jesie relationship in Carr's play. According to Chodorow, in the first stage, the mother becomes the role model for her daughter. She is the person whom the daughter identifies with and seeks to be another extension to; “to become her double". This paper proposes two statement of the problem: the first one is how the mother-daughter relationship is formed in the two plays. The second one is that despite the seemingly physical and psychological separation between the mother and the daughter. The connection between the two of them is so deep and subconsciously beyond the imaginable. The study also makes use of the psychoanalysis theory of the Pre-Oedipal/Imaginary stage.
Keywords: Psychoanalysis, Mother-daughter relationship, Chodorow, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, By the Bog of Cats.